


Protège moi de mes desirs

by spookypower



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: A bit of a drabble, Alternate Universe, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:37:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1389676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookypower/pseuds/spookypower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was scared of thunderstorms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Protège moi de mes desirs

It is late March.

 

It was not a particularly peculiar occurrence when the rain would descend in its haze and pelt against the earth with determination, indulging in its decadence on such a day; often, the skies would empty into a hoarse blackened state, resembling charcoal, and the only light that would enter into this vastness was that of the shattered lightning and the cracks of thunder.

 

He was scared of thunderstorms.

 

As the fire would crackle absently in the silence, he sits beside it to soak up as much of the comforting warmth he needed to. He would tuck his hands behind his knees, his head atop them, and he’d wrap himself with the closest woollen thing. The thunder would crack; he would flinch. Such a frigid frame he held often reminded me of ragdolls. A flinch would reflect the flicker of lightning; a flinch resembled a slight _flop_ of a doll.

 

He wasn’t deathly terrified of thunderstorms, though he was often very frightened, that he entered the same state of coping mechanism’s almost every time. I hadn’t discerned this ritual at any rate, not until the storm season would consume the world we knew around us; he often never spoke of these fears, and the only time I dared to bring this into account, he scoffed.

 

_“Don’t be stupid, only children are scared of thunderstorms.”_

 

Denial was often his mechanism of coping. He was still young, after all—naive, perhaps, but he was not a child. Nevertheless, I frequently indulged in his child-like nature and fantasies, and I would never deny that fact. Shrug it off, perhaps—but never deny. Our well-equipped opposite-nature was what had bought us together, kept us interlocked with one another, kept us interested—and more importantly, it kept us fighting.

 

Not always as a team.

 

\---

 

It is late March, a year prior.

 

As the storm enriched the darkened charcoal skies once again, his screams pierced the air louder than the cries of thunder; as if the thunder were to compete with the pain devouring his speech; his voice, exceedingly contempt, cracking in deterioration as he screamed at me, again, and again.

 

 _I would not admit to it, and I would never admit to it._ I would not admit to hurting him, either. I would deny ever intentionally hurting him, because on the larger scale, I really did not want to hurt him. In the past I would never have dared to, as is of the present, and as of the future; I would not _dare_ to hurt him.

 

“Do not accuse me of crimes I did not commit,” I had said, as if these things were in demand of legal actions of the world. I kept my glare stone-cold; I would not let him watch my fingertips tremble, or let him know how much I shook inwards with excruciating breaths. I could not let him know he had hurt me. That would hurt him.

 

He sunk to his knees, his face in his hands, trying to stop those red-hot tears stream down his stricken face. There was something oddly charming about watching those emerald eyes gleam with those same tears, but they washed away those seemingly unkempt worries and little stresses and those eruptions of anger would then emit into tears of fear.

 

He was scared of thunderstorms.

 

\---

 

It is late March, two years prior.

 

He is holding me. It is new to me; this amount of affection I often never yearned for, and often never accepted when rarely placed upon me. I was not a lover and I refused to love or be loved; yet there I was.

 

I would not admit to _it_ , nor did I desire to admit to _it_ , but _God_ did I want to admit _it_. I did not know what I wanted to admit. What was _it_?

 

With his thin, nimble fingers, he tucked them under my chin and pulled my face close to his; so close I could feel his breath swallow the mere air around me that I would struggle to breathe myself, and he would only just stare with such calmness I could not comprehend. I swam in the colour of his eyes. I would never return. I was a man who chose to live in the depths of the water. I knew it would kill me. I would not care.

 

I kissed the very lips that would curse me a year later.

 

I kissed the very lips that would drive me into illicit desires and subdued whimpers; the lips that elicit passage of that voice – that _chilling, haunting_ voice – that would hiss and moan into my ear, and the very pleasure that would course through my toes, legs, torso, arms—the entirety of my being would scream his name. Everything will cry with a god-forsaken _yes._

 

I would still not admit it, but it coerced itself within me, and it seduced me with the power it deemed over me, that I would no longer submit myself to any self-control. He was a drug; my drug would shake and quiver that very night, would desire to bury his face into my neck and hold me closer as the thunder rattled the earth.

 

He was scared of thunderstorms.

 

\- - -

 

It is late March, present day.

 

He still remains transfixed within the warmth of the flame. He wears thick socks and pyjama pants. He wears my grey sweater. I continue to watch his fear consume him whole.

 

He says he isn’t deathly afraid of the storm, but he lies. He won’t admit to what he fears. I will not admit to what I fear. I could not speak of my fear, but he did not know of it, and I would not tell him. It’s a fear I submitted myself to the moment he touched my face in that lingering fashion that I could not possibly tear myself away; as if forced to face the fear headfirst. Mug in hand, I grace beside him to sit. I sip from the tea. I place it on the rug in front of the fireplace, and pull him closer towards me.

 

He isn’t crying, but he trembles. He flinches when my fingertips touch his face, but he relaxes under the sensation when I pull his face directly in front of mine. I swim in his gaze again.

 

I mean to say ‘ _I’m sorry’,_ but instead I say, “You’re a terrible liar, you know.”

 

Instead of saying ‘ _If only I could erase this pain, my dear,’_ I say, “Don’t look at me like that, idiot,” in response to the insincere gaze he gives to my previous remark.

 

I pull him closer towards me, and let his head cradle in the crook of my neck. I hold him so close as if our bodies would intertwine.

 

This time, I say what I mean to say.

 

“Don’t be afraid. We’re in this together, love.”

 

We are both scared of thunderstorms. 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, Jaeger.


End file.
